Please note

This document refers to the 2.2 version of Apache httpd, which is no longer maintained. The active release is documented here. If you have not already upgraded, please follow this link for more information.

You may follow this link to go to the current version of this document.

See also

• Starting Apache httpd
• Stopping Apache httpd
• Configuration Files
• Platform-specific Documentation
• apachectl

• Comments

Synopsis

httpd [ -d serverroot ] [ -f config ] [ -C directive ] [ -c directive ] [ -D parameter ] [ -e level ] [ -E file ] [ -k start|restart|graceful|stop|graceful-stop ] [ -h ] [ -l ] [ -L ] [ -S ] [ -t ] [ -v ] [ -V ] [ -X ] [ -M ] [ -T ]

On Windows systems, the following additional arguments are available:

httpd [ -k install|config|uninstall ] [ -n name ] [ -w ]

Options

-d serverroot

Set the initial value for the ServerRoot directive to serverroot. This can be overridden by the ServerRoot directive in the configuration file. The default is /usr/local/apache2.

-f config

Uses the directives in the file config on startup. If config does not begin with a /, then it is taken to be a path relative to the ServerRoot. The default is conf/httpd.conf.

-k start|restart|graceful|stop|graceful-stop

Signals httpd to start, restart, or stop. See Stopping Apache httpd for more information.

-C directive

Process the configuration directive before reading config files.

-c directive

Process the configuration directive after reading config files.

-D parameter

Sets a configuration parameter which can be used with <IfDefine> sections in the configuration files to conditionally skip or process commands at server startup and restart. Also can be used to set certain less-common startup parameters including -DNO_DETACH (prevent the parent from forking) and -DFOREGROUND (prevent the parent from calling setsid() et al).

-e level

Sets the LogLevel to level during server startup. This is useful for temporarily increasing the verbosity of the error messages to find problems during startup.

-E file

Send error messages during server startup to file.

-R directory

When the server is compiled using the SHARED_CORE rule, this specifies the directory for the shared object files.

-h

Output a short summary of available command line options.

-l

Output a list of modules compiled into the server. This will not list dynamically loaded modules included using the LoadModule directive.

-L

Output a list of directives together with expected arguments and places where the directive is valid.

-M

Dump a list of loaded Static and Shared Modules.

-S

Show the settings as parsed from the config file (currently only shows the virtualhost settings).

-T (Available in 2.2.17 and later)

Skip document root check at startup/restart.

-t

Run syntax tests for configuration files only. The program immediately exits after these syntax parsing tests with either a return code of 0 (Syntax OK) or return code not equal to 0 (Syntax Error). If -D DUMP_VHOSTS is also set, details of the virtual host configuration will be printed. If -D DUMP_MODULES is set, all loaded modules will be printed.

-v

Print the version of httpd, and then exit.

-V

Print the version and build parameters of httpd, and then exit.

-X

Run httpd in debug mode. Only one worker will be started and the server will not detach from the console.

The following arguments are available only on the Windows platform:

-k install|config|uninstall

Install Apache httpd as a Windows NT service; change startup options for the Apache httpd service; and uninstall the Apache httpd service.

-n name

The name of the Apache httpd service to signal.

-w

Keep the console window open on error so that the error message can be read.